'Lidl plan means big trouble for my neighbourhood shop'

Mic Singh, who owns GT News on the corner of Chiltern View Road and Cowley Road, says if the budget supermarket gets permission to open in what is now a Peugeot dealership a few hundred yards away, his 23 years in business are over.

He said: "We have been building a reputation for 23 years around the community, and with the recession it has not been easy.

"If a Lidl was to come in we may as well close up for good. Lidl have their stores in town centres, not neighbourhoods. Everybody I have spoken to who lives around here feels the same as me."

He said Lidl, combined with the Tesco superstore being built just down the road on the old Taplin

Trading Estate in Yiewsley, would spell the end for him and many other local businesses.

Mr Singh added: "My other concern is traffic. Along the Cowley Road it is too busy as it is - it crawls along at rush hour. A supermarket would only add to this.

"I also live just across the road from the proposed store, and the deliveries would no doubt keep me awake at night.

"I only get four to five hours sleep a night because I have to be up at 4.45am to open up. It will not make life easier for me.

"I am speaking with other traders to try and get a petition sorted, but we are just shopkeepers. I don't know if we will be able to fight it.

"Gradually more and more shops are going out of business; the recession has been so bad that people are closing all the time."